1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to digital image and data processing, and more particularly, to devices, systems and methods for embedding and retrieving information in digital images and using the information to organize, process and control the digital images, where the information may include location information, time and date information and user verification information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Photographs are taken for a variety of personal and business reasons. During the course of the year, an individual may take numerous photographs of various events. During these events, quite often there is a variety of different individuals and items present in these photographs. In the prior art, when one desires to catalog these images in a particular order, they usually are left to placing these images manually into photograph albums. This is a very extensive, manual procedure requiring a significant amount of time. In addition, it is very limited with regard to the amount of information that can be associated with the image in a quick and easy manner. While some photo albums allow the writing and placing of text, the entering of this data is a very time consuming and arduous affair. Once having sorted these images into particular albums which may represent categories of interest, it is extremely difficult to retrieve and/or reorganize the images into other categories.
With the advent of digital cameras and digital imaging, the process of organizing images and associating information with the images has become even more difficult. Firstly, upon capturing an image with a digital camera, the camera simply gives the image a numerical file name which usually has no meaning to the user and makes it difficult to retrieve at a later date. Secondly, with the technological advances in file size compression and increased capacity of storage media, several hundred images may be taken before a user downloads the images to a computer or other device, making it a very time consuming task to associate information to each image.
Furthermore, in the current environment, a need exists to verify information captured via digital images and to rapidly transmit this information from one location to another. However, no system or hardware currently exists to enable a user to capture and store images in a secure format containing information on the time and day, specific location and user identification of the images that were captured. This is a critical need, since this information can serve to verify the activities of the user, or to authenticate various data points.
Therefore, a need exists for techniques for easily associating information about an image to the image and using the information to control and retrieve the image. A further need exists for associating location information, date and time information and user verification information to a captured image.